New Jack City: Warner Bros. Rating: USA: R/ Australia: R
Ever see a film that you thought was really great—one that you really liked, then not see it for a few years, stumble across it, and wonder what you were thinking when you first saw (and loved) it? Fortunately, over the span of my 28 years of life, my tastes have remained pretty steady. If I like a film, I can usually revisit it years later and still like it…same goes for the inverse. However, while channel surfing the other night, I stumbled across Mario Van Peebles 1991 hip-hop gangsta saga, New Jack City--a film that I loved when it was released theatrically. An hour and a half later, I was left wondering just what I’d ever seen in the film to begin with.
For those not in the know, New Jack City was one of the first films to attempt to cash in on the burgeoning popularity of hip-hop culture. Rap artists weren’t just content to sell records and make videos—now they wanted to be movie stars as well. In 1990, Kid ‘n Play made the jump to the big screen with their teen-styled comedy House Party. The film was a pretty good facsimile of their musical image—wholesome, fun, and geared toward having a good time. The film was a success (it spawned 2 sequels), yet it was only one kind of story. A year later, the more hardcore and aggressive gangsta rap style was gaining popularity—and its street-style tales of the drug trade seemed rife with potential for screenwriters.
The end result was New Jack City, a hybrid version of your typical cop buddy picture, Scarface, and B action movie…tossed in a blender with some hip-hop elements to give it mass appeal..
Ice-T is Scotty Appleton, a maverick cop devoted to removing scum from the streets by any means necessary. When Mario Van Peebles assembles a special task force devoted to bringing down ruthless drug lord Nino Brown (Wesley Snipes), Scotty teams up with Nick Peretti (Judd Nelson), reformed crackhead Pookie (Chris Rock), and Park (Russell Wong) with the sole goal of shutting down Brown’s 1 million dollar a week crack operation.
Nino’s your typical rags to riches gangster (a la Tony Montana in Scarface). Starting out as a simple stick up kid/drug pusher with partner Gee Money (Allen Payne), he risen through the ranks and now has designs on taking over a tenement building to house his drug empire. The only problem is, he’s got the cops coming at him from one angle and angry mafia guys (who he’s cut out of the business) from the other. From there, things build predictably with Snipes building an empire only to see it be destroyed by the forces of good and his megalomania.
There’s an interesting, if unoriginal, story at work in New Jack City, and its one that’s very similar to Scarface. The young street hustler eventually works his way to the top of the drug mountain, but ultimately can’t stay there. However, New Jack City drops the narrative ball repeatedly—and in just about every way imaginable—so comparing it to a film like Scarface is sort of like comparing Bruno Mattei’s Night of the Zombies to Romero’s Night of the Living Dead…they look the same, but the execution makes one a classic and the other pretty forgettable.
The first problem is the script itself. Crack was a big deal back in 1991, and it’s the drug of focus in this film. That’s not a bad thing in and of itself (particularly since there’s still a crack epidemic in this country today), but the heavy-handed moralizing the script engages in is. Time after time, New Jack City clobbers us over the head with its anti-drug agenda. In fact, Chris Rock’s Pookie isn’t a character; he’s a walking, talking public service announcement. Watch Chris Rock attack a fellow female crackhead in a deserted building, see Chris Rock’s nasty teeth and disheveled appearance, watch Chris Rock hit the pipe after going through rehabilitation, etc. Pookie exists solely to demonstrate how unglamorous the life of a crackhead really is...but didn't we all already know this?
Of course, the rest of the cast is equally clichéd. Scotty’s the cop who will do whatever it takes to get his man—even if it means bending the rules. He and Peretti are your typical mismatched partners—one’s a hip-hop guy, the other’s an Italian. Mario Van Peebles is the conflicted boss—the one who yells at his charges for screwing things up and not going by the book and takes all the flack from the higher ups. Gee Money’s the loyal partner who becomes upset when his friend forgets that he didn’t become a success all by himself. The whole thing just screams formula.
And while the main characters are bad, they’re not nearly as bad as the supporting ones. The mafia guys here are particularly entertaining—they’re complete caricatures—from their suits and jewelry, the exaggerated accents, the racial slurs, all the way through to them sitting in front of a café playing cards. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the faithful wife who Nino betrays, and the sleazy stripper who’s little more than a gold digger.
The acting essentially matches with the writing…for the most part. Ice-T is actually a lot worse than I remember, and he really looks silly in that African print tam when they’re walking along the beach. Nelson gives a valiant effort, but the dialogue he’s given to work with is so bad in spots that I’m amazed he could say it with a straight face.
Wesley Snipes is the one major exception—this is arguably one of his best performances. Snipes brings Nino to life, and while the character isn’t any better written than the others, he brings some kind of weird intangible quality to the role. It’s an intense portrayal that goes over-the-top in spots, but ultimately works.
The rest of the cast is comprised mostly of hip-hop musicians (Flavor Flav turns up in one scene, as does former Yo! MTV Raps host Fab Five Freddy), R&B acts (Guy takes stage, Levert shows up, Nick Ashford has a role, Keith Sweat sings at a wedding, and Christopher Williams has a supporting role), or interesting character actors (Vanessa Williams—not the singer, Bill Cobbs, etc.).
While these cameos by musicians were cool at the time, they help date the film today, as does the early 90’s clothes, style of dance, expressions, etc. It’s the curse of trying to make a timely film—it might work in its historical context, but once that time period has passed, everything that made it appealing winds up dating it and working against it.
Of course, with all of these rap and R&B stars hanging around, you can bet that New Jack City features some music. In some ways, the film almost looks like a music video—it seems like certain songs were written specifically for the scenes they were used in, there are numerous musical performances that pull us away from the actual narrative, etc. The film spawned a soundtrack, and was one of the first examples of how African American films have become linked with their soundtracks.
Overall, I think I know why I liked New Jack City when I first saw it—I had nothing to compare it to. When I first viewed this film, I hadn’t yet seen movies like Abel Ferrara’s King of New York, De Palma’s Scarface, or even Bill Duke’s Deep Cover--all films about the same basic thing, and all of them much better than New Jack City. There’s only one reason to see this film—to catch Wesley Snipes in one of his earliest, and best, performances. Otherwise, skip New Jack City and rent Scarface instead.
A violent kinetic gangster film with a strong anti-drug message NEW JACK CITY is set in the mid-1980s during the height of the crack epidemic. Two str...More at Family Video
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